Royal Beast: A Royal Bad Boy Romance Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Royal Beast

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ash

  Cover

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Other Books

  About the author

  Royal Beast

  A Royal Bad Boy Romance

  Lexi Whitlow

  Natasha Wessex

  © 2016 Natasha Wessex and Lexi Whitlow

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  ***

  Editing by Dawn

  Cover Design:

  Redd Hott Covers

  Royal Beast

  Chapter One

  “Hit me again, Bruno.” The guy gives me a suspicious look, as suspicious as a giant gorilla of a man can look. Usually, he’s the bouncer here, but tonight, he’s dealing cards. He knows me well enough by now and likes me even less. We both know his name isn’t Bruno, and I’m firmly of the opinion that he’s an asshole. But he deals again, and it’s a full house.

  “Looks like you win again. Filthy royal. Your mother must be dead proud of you.” He spits the words at me in a thick, muddled cockney accent and hands me my chips, gesturing with his giant, muscular chin over to the bar where I can collect my cash. If this were a normal night at a normal bar, I’d stay for more, but something tells me that Bruno here is serious about not dealing me another hand. About as serious as he is about insulting me and my family.

  No matter.

  “Whore that she is,” he adds.

  “Can’t help it if I keep winning, man.” I wink at him before I walk away. At this point in the evening, I need a drink anyway. “Just like you can’t help it if you have the IQ of a fucking chimp. And a personality that suggests about half that same intelligence.”

  I couldn’t help but get that last jab in, and there’s enough alcohol running through my system that the words slipped right out. When I get up to the bar and exchange my chips for the cash, I’m almost convinced he didn’t hear me. But after I’ve tucked away the money, a beefy hand catches me by the collar and pulls me backward.

  “Take it back, you rich cunt.” His voice rumbles in my ear, and I turn around quickly, wrenching myself out of his grasp and landing a punch under his chin. My adrenaline is pumping, heart racing, battling the alcohol I’ve got in my system. I step back and shuffle to the side.

  “Chimps are right smart. Probably smarter than you.” As I say it, I regret it. God knows my mother isn’t worth defending to anyone, nor is my family. But something protective surges up inside of me every time a jab comes. They might be very close to being first-world dictators, especially when it comes to managing me and my life, but they’re mine to insult at the end of the day. “I was probably giving you too much credit. But hey man, I was trying to be nice.”

  I shrug and dance back to the side, my back landing against the bar as I avoid the swing of his fist. He’s not exactly sober himself, and this kind of establishment in the red-light district isn’t prone to stopping bar fights when they occur. I grin as a small circle of people starts to surround us. Giving a wink to a few of the girls in the audience, I step to the side to avoid impact with the bouncer’s fist again. The scowl on his face deepens, and he attempts to bend over and grab me by the waist, which would have my ass on the short ceiling of the bar. I dodge him again, landing a strike on his side that would slow an ordinary man down, but only makes this one madder and more vicious.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” he pants. “But you come in here every Friday night and fuck up our game. You take money you don’t need, you run up a tab, you short the bartender, and then you leave.”

  “Never do I short a good server. Just you when you’re working there.” I smile again and narrowly avoid his elbow as it heads for my face. The crowd watching is bigger now.

  Good. There’s less of a chance he’ll knock me the fuck out and take the money, I think. As much as this place might like to think it’s seedy, it’s primarily a tourist destination, and it wouldn’t look good if customers weren’t getting their due.

  As the thought passes through my mind, I’m a second too slow, and Bruno’s fist collides with my face, knocking my head back so hard that I think I might have whiplash. A second punch lands in the same spot, and soon, I’m pushed against the bar, pinned by a giant, meaty arm.

  “All right, man. That’s enough now. Let him go. Bad for business.” The owner’s voice echoes in my head, and I feel the arm easing up on my midsection.

  “You sure, boss? This one’ll just keep coming back.”

  “He won’t be,” the voice says. “You hear that, Albring? We don’t want to see your face around here again. Or I’ll let Liam have his way with you. And tonight, he only just got started. Nod if you understand me.”

  I nod, chin and jaw throbbing hard. The whole thing will smart like hell tomorrow. Liam. That’s funny. That sort of stately name doesn’t fit the big gorilla of a man. No wonder I couldn’t remember his name.

  Dramatically, he lets me go, nearly throwing me towards the stairs. I fall against the wall, panting. Normally, I’m the one who wins these types of fights. At over six feet tall and muscled from a decade of judo and lifting, I’m a match for just about everyone I meet—even in this section of the town. T
he best I can do now is grumble in annoyance and head up the stairs out of the bar. No one is a match for that man. And even if this was my highest paying gig, like he said, I don’t have much need for the money.

  It’s good to spend on women, when it comes down to it. But there are always resources for that in the family fund—or there were until Mother and Father made their most recent decision. The rickety wooden staircase seems to swirl around me, the walls expanding and collapsing, but somehow I manage to stay on my feet and make it to the cool autumn air outside.

  I lean against the two-hundred-year-old brick and put up one knee. The canals reflect the orangey-yellow lights of the city, pulsing with life, and I suddenly wish I had my camera with me. Instead, I take out my phone and snap a picture. The edges of the buildings along the canal look blurry, but that’s how it is with a phone at night. Shrugging, I put my phone back in my jacket pocket with the three thousand euros I cobbled together over the course of the evening.

  Mad money. I touch my cheek and shudder. Hard won this time, but maybe that makes it better.

  Strangely, the streets feel dead right now, heavy with something unknown. Maybe it’s the shame of getting kicked out of a bar without even finding a British girl to take home. Or maybe it’s the string of texts from my mother that I ignored a few hours ago, each one angrier and more insistent than the last.

  I’m serious, Matthias. You’re done with this life, Matthias. We know about everything, Matthias.

  Come home. Undo this.

  There’s an image to uphold. A monarchy to maintain. Marriages and children to be had. Debts to be paid and written off.

  Debts. No one even knows where I live for most of the year. Debts easily paid by the money I’ve saved, but they haven’t come looking yet. And they won’t.

  I contemplate lighting a cigarette, but I catch movement from my peripheral vision before I can grab the pack from my jeans. At first, I think it’s a trick of the light on the water, but instead, it appears there’s a specter coming from the left. A girl dressed in a long white skirt and a white shirt, tattoo peeking out from the sleeve of her white shoulder. That’s white too. Short, deep brown hair and eyebrows that would make her face look severe, a nose that turns up slightly at the bottom, full lips pulled into a tight, straight line. The whole look should make her look strange and unapproachable, but the sum of her parts makes her look captivating instead. A tourist—yes, possibly. But an interesting one, without the ubiquitous blue backpack and the money wallet around the neck.

  I take my thumbs and forefingers and put them into a square, taking a fake picture in my mind. Something to remember for later.

  The girl must be closer than my mind first realized because she stops less than ten steps away from me and looks at me quizzically.

  “What was that? What were you doing?” Her voice is raspy and low, in a sexy, distinctly American way. Like that actress—Emma Stone. A bit like that, but this girl is far grittier. More fascinating.

  “Saving a picture. Girl in white, walking on the canal. Rosse Buurt in the background. Pretty. Stunning, in fact.” Like before, the words slip out. But at least, this time, they’re compliments. Complimenting women comes easy to me—not that insulting idiotic bouncers doesn’t come easy. This girl isn’t likely to come home with me off the street, but it doesn’t hurt to try. It would be the second big win of the evening, and it might make up for what happened to my face.

  She cocks her head to one side and puts a hand on one hip. “You use that line with all the girls, do you?”

  “No. I have plenty of lines, but I rarely see a woman who warrants a picture.”

  “And what warrants a picture?” She looks a bit like she’s on guard, her hand casually brushing over her purse and gripping a little bit too tight.

  “I’ll walk you home and tell you.”

  “I’m switching to a new Air BnB tomorrow. It’s my first night in Amsterdam. I’m just walking right now.” She bites her lip, and I can tell she didn’t intend to say that. Looking at her, full breasts and hips gently outlined in white, I want to offer a bed, a soft, downy place to stay. I want to offer more than that—hands and lips and hips to slide between her thighs and shock the distant, sad look from her eyes. Blue-gray in color, and sad, yes, now that I look more closely.

  “Then I’ll take you to coffee in the morning after your night walking.”

  She raises an eyebrow and gives me her most skeptical look. I can’t help but smile, but the smile hurts my face now that Liam smashed it within an inch of its life.

  “I don’t think you need to be going much of anywhere tomorrow morning, champ. What happened there?”

  “Like I said, I’ll walk you home and tell you.” I touch my jaw absently, and her cool eyes stay on my face. “Maybe the other guy looks somewhat worse. You won’t know unless you spend a little time getting to know me.” I grin, and it’s somewhat painful when I do. That Liam fellow packed a good punch. Since the shock has worn off, I’m reasonably certain I need ice. I’m also reasonably certain it’ll hurt more tomorrow when I’m 100% sober.

  “I did point out that I don’t have a home right now. Just a rental. And I can’t get in until eight in the morning.”

  “So you’re really walking through Amsterdam in the middle of the night? What if you get mugged?” I imagine some guy coming up to her and taking her by the arm, wrenching her purse away from her.

  “I have my bags and money stowed. And I’m pretty certain I could fend for myself.” She stands up straighter when she says that, and I can almost believe her. She’s tall, but with a curvy frame that might hide a layer of packed muscle beneath. Looking at her, even in the dim, shimmering light coming off of the canal, I feel a tingle that starts low in my belly, reaching out warmly through my thighs. My cock twitches. At this moment—slightly in pain, more than slightly tipsy—I’d give anything to see exactly what she’s made of. There aren’t many girls who make their way through the city that inspire that sensation. Plenty have seen the inside of the Albring family house here, but few make a lasting impression.

  The girl standing in front of me, with the short, dark, curly hair and the long white skirt, she’s the lasting impression kind. She keeps staring at me intently and brushes a lock of hair away from her face. “You look like someone I’ve seen before.”

  “It’s just the light. Or lack thereof.” I give her a crooked smile and take a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. I don’t ordinary smoke, but these are hand-rolled, and I like fine things after a night of gambling. I offer one to her, but she shakes her head. Shrugging, I light it.

  “No, really, you do.”

  If she’s seen pictures of me, they’re from at least five years ago. I don’t allow many people to know who I am, let alone where I am. And the one thing I can say for my parents is that they don’t press those particular issues. Not until the past month or so, since Father started growing ill. I shake off the thought. “I bear a slight resemblance to someone you might have seen. But I get that a lot. There are lots of Dutch men that look like me.”

  “I’ve only been here a day, and I don’t think that’s true.” Her words come out in a whisper, and she nervously shifts her weight. She didn’t mean to say it—I can tell.

  I can always tell with women. This one might be slightly different, the tiniest bit more alluring. But she’s still a woman, something intimately familiar in my life.

  “Is that so?” I take a drag from my cigarette and notice that there’s a long train of ash forming at the tip. I haven’t been paying attention. “And you see a lot of men on your travels?”

  “I don’t—no—definitely not. I just meant that—” She turns an alluring shade of pink and backs away from me slightly, like I might reach out and grab her. I grin slyly. I have half an impulse to do it, just to shock her.

  “I’m teasing. I can tell there’s something unusual about you. You don’t have the look of the American tourists I see walking around here. They’re all light and ca
refree, throwing their money around and coming to bars like this for a bit of a laugh. They’ve seen plenty of men. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not something you’ve been looking for.”

  “What have I been looking for, if you’re such an expert?” She keeps her face composed and purses her lips like she’s a bit too haughty for someone like me. But her eyes look down for an instant, lingering on my body for a moment before returning to my face. This girl—she probably didn’t even know she did it.

  I shrug. “That I don’t know. But even if I can’t walk you home, I can walk with you. You can tell me then, if you even know. I’m a good listener, or so I’ve been told—”

  “By multiple tourist women?” She steps away, like she’s getting ready to leave.

  “Something like that.” I move from the wall and stub out my cigarette, ready to follow her. It’s more instinct than anything else, the urge to follow her, to see what it is she’s thinking, what she’s here to discover.

  She holds up a hand. “No thanks—I don’t think it’s a good idea to walk around with a stranger for the rest of the night.”

  “It’s not a good idea to walk around alone either, is it? Not in this part of town.”

  “I’m heading to the city center. And then to the apartment where I’m staying. It’s in some neighborhood with a J—”

  “Jordaan?” I don’t let her know that my little neighborhood is steps away.

  “It could be that. I don’t remember,” she says, scrunching up her face. “I need to check my phone. And right now, I need to go—”

  “The night is young. You sure you don’t want someone to walk with? I’m good company.”

  “So you say.” She adjusts her skirt, nervously again, and turns toward the city center.

  “It’s a smaller town than you might think,” I say into the darkness as she walks away, white skirt swaying. “I might see you around.”

  She turns back and looks at me, the white part of her tattoo catching a stray bit of streetlight. “Maybe.”